


home

by wingspike



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, also some owain/inigo if you squint, basically post fates, kinda long chara study or something
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-06-06 17:42:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6763825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingspike/pseuds/wingspike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>coming home should have meant coming to you, yet here i avoided it until i couldn't take it any longer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	home

**Author's Note:**

> i love gerome/inigo. inigo actually just makes me REALLY SAD.  
> i played awakening so long ago but never really jumped on ship hype train until after fates? i'm not sure how i didn't but I DIDN'T. i kind of fell deep into geroazu hell.  
> i really wanted to write inigo coming home to gerome and my friend also prompted me to write it so .. we go.  
> this also ended up being some long inigo character study and less geroazu than i wanted but it's still geroazu towards the latter half. :")

“I’ll be fine.” 

The smile on his lips is a pale comparison of the one that he (surprisingly) wore during the war, one that he wore with the heat of a fight bright in his eyes, one warm the way he looked at the current Lord he served, one pulled soft at the corners where he watched his now distant companions over a fire. It was slipping when he looked at Odin – no, _Owain_ in front of him. 

“If you’re sure, Inigo. You’ll know where to find me.”

The false bravado Inigo has become so accustomed to hearing has fallen now, as well, if only for the moment. He feels the sensitivity in the air where Owain tiptoes slow around his still bruised heart, knows the way he may break the moment he lays eyes on a familiar redhead, should he truly be successful in finding him. He hopes so – hopes he can soothe the ache that has re-bloomed in his chest upon returning.

“Of course.”

 

.

 

His trip is short – much shorter than the travelling he had done in his first war, more travelling than the second, and much more than the third. If Inigo was being honest with himself, he would have to say he’d been in too many wars for his own taste and the prospect of a peaceful world was one he welcomed yet one that seemed like a lie, all the same.

War became a daily ritual, a part of his every day life. It seemed unrealistic to believe he wouldn’t wake up the next morning to march or leave the astral plane, to be ambushed, to fight in a battle that was not his as much as it was another’s. He’d cleaned up too many conflicts that were not his own, yet when dealing with his own as he was, he didn’t know how to handle them.

Still, he finds himself dealing with his problems in a home that is his own once more. It is a home close to a familiar wyvern rider’s that he’ll find in himself to visit later when he has the courage to (and when did he have a lack of courage? – that was the the underlying question). Right now he needs to collect himself, gloved fingers brushing the aging wood of a front door long closed.

He opens it anyways, lets the midday light flood over covered furniture and dust-hung air. He breathes in dust that only begins to cover his bones, sets down his bag immediately inside the door, pushes open curtains to fully illuminate the living and kitchen area. 

Inigo can see his mother here, hair long and braided down her back from a job sloppily done by none other than his naïve and then unskilled hands. He can see her where she cooks, where he sits at the table drinking sweet juice, where his father sits in a now unused chair polishing a weapon that was later to be handed to him. He tries to breathe slow but feels the pain well in his chest when he moves to discard his gloves, to roll up his sleeves, to gather supplies to clean.

It hurts but he manages to wipe away the memories gathered in heavy layers of dust while uncovering others piece by piece as he removes furniture coverings, spreads blankets, places his slim belongings in places where they should go before settling down for the night.

He feels the creaking not only in the shift of his bed but also in his head as he lays down to sleep, to dream of a war and people he will never see again.

 

.

 

Inigo tries his best to settle back into daily life without war, yet it is one so unfamiliar that he’s almost sure he can’t do it. Something is wrong, something itching underneath the surface of his skin telling him that he should be fighting, tearing through Risen and an Invisible Kingdom alike, that his sword should be heavy in his hand where he swings it with a grace foreign to one land yet familiar in another.

A land he’s in now.

He’s home, or so he tries to tell himself.

Each day he attempts to convince himself that this is where he belongs, yet he is exhausted deep down to his core from the moment the sun rises to the moment it sets and he sits himself next to candlelight in an attempt to read, to make himself tired. There are words at the back of his mind that tell him he should have not left, however, that he had found himself in his rightful place next to a king and next to a prince of a kingdom in another land. 

He thinks to himself that he misses Owain, now, no matter how loud and how brash he could be. It makes him smile down at his hands where he sits outdoors playing with his mother’s wedding ring, thoughts drawn to him, to her, to friends far off and to those he isn’t sure he can consider his friends anymore. Inigo makes a note to stop avoiding people and to answer the two letters he’s gotten since coming here, since coming _home_ , but he still can’t bring himself to read them.

They’re too painful to read.

 

.

 

Inigo isn’t sure of the day when he wakes or the time when he pulls himself out of bed to head into town. He’s trying to dispel the restless feeling that has made home in his bones while simultaneously just trying to _live_. He wants to breathe without reminding himself to, wants to look around the home he’s in without the ghost of his mother there, wants to find the guts to travel to a certain axe wielder.

Impossible. 

Or so it feels as he walks, the path as familiar as some of the now matured faces in the town he used to frequent so long ago. He doesn’t really understand how timelines have crossed, how some have settled while others haven’t, but he doesn’t put too much mind to it as he shops. His groceries are the same as always, favourited foods and merchants his priority, stands visited in a specific order lest one be out of something specific he’s looking for. 

Today must be a different day, however, explaining the unease that he’d felt earlier in the day before he left the house. He knows it’s different from a familiar shock of red hair, from shoulders broad where dark fabric pulls taught across. Inigo takes this as his cue to return, to abandon his half-shopped for list in favour of false comfort behind worn walls.

 

.

 

He’s unsettled until he finds his way back to market to finish his shopping and more. Inigo leaves the dim of his home for daylight with flowers cradled gently in his arms, petals bright in contrast to his somber mood. 

Inigo thinks he must be a fool, then; an idiot for avoiding things, an idiot for not smiling like he wanted everyone else to. He’s more than positive that if Owain caught him in his constant moments of weakness he would laugh, would force him out. He could (almost) clearly picture how loud he would get, the roughness of his hands as he tugged him down well-worn paths worked over by their feet through the woods, how he’d shove him down into a stream like they were teens again in between wars with laughter light. 

He wonders what things would have been like if Owain stayed, if they traveled together instead of him coming back to a home and a grave cold and fading.

It doesn’t matter what he wonders because he still sits in front of the grave he hasn’t seen in years, flowers stark where they lay against grey. He has to brush cut grass out of the way to look at the stone properly, warmed under his fingers from the sun and words wearing away where they trace reverently. His smile is one reserved for his mother when he speaks. Inigo misses her.

The words that spill from his lips are jumbled. They flow over like a stream breaking past a dam after a particularly bad rain, voice running hoarse when he’s finished. He knows he’ll have to come here day and day again to tell his mother of everything that he’s experienced in each world that his feet have dipped into, will have something to tell that is deep within each ripple where he has disturbed the folds of time themselves with his existence. Inigo is content with that, just as he’s content with standing and dancing.

He dances until the exhaustion consuming his being isn’t from the weariness that settled in his body after another war, after isolating himself. Inigo dances until he can’t breathe, until the sun is beginning to lower itself and the light is bleeding pink and orange across the sky. He dances until he feels his legs give. It’s a dance for his mother, for himself, for the sorrow he’s felt for leaving friend after friend, for leaving his mother, for learning the hard way how flawed he truly was. He dances her dance as much as he dances those that are his own, those that he’s practiced late into the night without the prying eyes of others.

He dances until he feels he needs to sleep, the sky and his body telling him to return home, to bathe, to crawl under blankets as sleep wins over his rampant mind.

And he does.

 

.

 

It feels like days (or maybe it’s weeks) before he gets the courage to pen back to those that have written him. He remembers their familiar faces as much as he remembers those who were connected to them. He knows the sounds of their cries whether from injury or sadness or success and it makes him pause in his letters before he finishes them and seals them, sending them off with the mail carrier the next morning. 

He feels like it’s days later before he becomes brave enough to use the address Owain gave him, the trip taking longer than he expected by foot before he finds himself in the cool of darkness. Inigo knows it would be a good idea to knock on the door but can’t bring himself to do it, the dark of stone enclosing warmth he knows has been waiting for him.

Or he hopes he’s been waiting for him. He hopes he still knows Gerome well enough to think he hasn’t changed much since they’ve last seen each other, just as much as he hopes that he hasn’t forgotten him. Inigo knows he’s been in his thoughts the whole time he was gone, knows he’s ran through his mind more than he can count being back in the same world that they once shared when they were friends (and maybe more). He looks down at his bare hand, attempting to trick his body into knocking before he chickens out and runs for the hundredth time before a voice sounds low behind him.

“Who goes there?”

It makes him jump, the cool press of metal against his neck alarming him and rooting him where he stands. Maybe this had been a mistake from the start. The wrong home, an unfamiliar man with a knife pressed to his neck. He supposed he’d lived through too many things with too much luck and this was how he was going to die. Here, now.

But that voice picks up again with a tone that’s nothing short of incredulous. It has his head turning with it, the grip on his torso slackening to free him, allowing him to fully glace over his shoulder.

“Inigo?”

Every past memory and all his past feelings had been long suppressed, or so Inigo thought until he caught sight of a face bare of a mask. It was a face that had matured, noting the way a frown still caught perpetually at the corners of his mouth while questions swam within chocolate hues. His breath caught in his throat, immediately reaching out yet pulling back like he’d been burned. How he wanted to touch him, _yearned_ for it for so long, yet here he was denying himself. 

This wasn’t how he’d planned on reuniting with Gerome, after all. At least – he hadn’t planned on having a knife to his throat or to appear like he was sneaking around in the middle of the night. He only wanted to see him, to maybe apologize and explain what had happened now that he was allowed to. He wasn’t in a place where he had to hide his identity anymore, where he had to pretend. He could explain everything finally. 

Inigo took a moment before pulling his gaze from the ground, a sad smile falling light on his lips while the timeworn floorboards in his heart groaned with repressed feeling.

“I’m home.”

 

.

 

“Welcome home,” is breathed hot against his lips and he’s sobbing. 

He sobs hard against Gerome where he’s pressed back against a bed they’d once shared. It’s as warm as he remembers it, Gerome just as heavy between his thighs where he’s settled and hands just as gentle where he’s kissing Inigo senseless, face cradled like he’s going to break.

And maybe he _was_ breaking. Inigo could feel the weight of sadness that had settled long ago with roots that branched long slowly burn away, a fire raging from his heart until it spread and consumed him. Each sob wracked his body when it bubbled up, each one equally swallowed where Gerome willingly kissed him, where Gerome whispered sweet nothings against his lips while wiping away the tears that fell.

“I can’t believe you’re still here,” Inigo hiccupped.

“Where would I have gone?” was the response, softly murmured against the flushed rise of his cheekbone.

“I don’t know, but you shouldn’t have wasted your time. You should have been with everyone else. I bet they’re worried about you,” he breathes out fast, breath catching every few words where he tries to calm himself.

“I would not have dreamt of leaving. Besides…” Gerome pauses, lips pressing against slate locks. “I believe everyone is more concerned about you.”

And he whimpers, knowing the implications behind those words, from letters that took far too long to answer and hands that only wished to find his again. He only wanted that of one, however. 

So he took it, hand sliding over top Gerome’s hand to ease away from his face. He pressed a kiss to the palm of it before lacing their fingers together with a squeeze. Inigo tried to give him a better smile while relaxing into the down pillows underneath. 

“I missed you so much.”

 

.

 

He sleeps better that night than any other night since he’d been born.

That might be a lie, but close enough to the truth.

Inigo slept well any time he was in Gerome’s arms, even when that meant sneaking into his tent during war and relishing in the warmth of strong arms until he had to brave the cold of the morning well before the sun rose with grass dew-damp under his feet when he ran, well before people in camp were roused and they could be caught sleeping together. He didn’t want to know what their friends would say, let alone their parents when they’d eventually met them (though he couldn’t imagine his mother disapproving).

But none of them needed to know their secret – one that wasn’t necessarily a secret when they had won and hugged each other after battle, Inigo’s lips branding and hot where he unconsciously kissed Gerome from their win with joy while his nervousness was cried out. It wasn’t a secret when time had settled back to where it was meant to be, yet he still felt like he was living a secret or even a lie when he woke, panic gripping tight around his heart when he woke to an empty bed, head spinning from his dreams. 

“Gerome?”

He hates the way his voice sounds weak when he calls out, rubbing sleep away as blankets pool at his waist. His fingers move across the rumpled sheets on the other side of the bed, cool to the touch that meant he had long been absent. Inigo wants to think it isn’t a dream but something tells him he must be in one, brain forcing his legs to move towards familiar smells and sounds he hadn’t initially picked up on.

He’s only in his smallclothes and a tunic but ignores the cold spring brings inside brick walls away from blankets, taking warmth for himself where he buries his face against Gerome’s back. Tears sting the back of his eyelids and he lets out a shuddering breath into light fabric, fingers curling into firm sides.

“Gods, you scared me,” he mumbles, voice cracking.

He listens to Gerome pause in his cooking before turning around, tunes in to the feeling of hands in his hair before they’re on his back.

“I’m sorry. Would you have rather me woken you? You seemed like you needed your beauty rest.” It’s fond on the edges, slightly teasing where it should be. It’s a tone Inigo didn’t know Gerome had in him. 

“Not unless you were waking me with a kiss.”

 

.

 

He takes the next few days, weeks, _months_ to relearn Gerome.

He learns that things are just as different as they are the same, and somewhere he finds comfort in knowing that. 

He figures out that his training is roughly the same, that he hasn’t stopped, that he still has a giant wyvern that’s absolutely loyal to him but she enjoys her free time away from the home considering the calm that settled after the war ended, after they’d won. Inigo can tell he’s stronger, however, not only from how much he has filled out despite the height he’s gained, but by how he swings a sword and meets Inigo’s after he’d offered to train with him. Admittedly he’s a little rusty, blade abandoned in favour of dancing as he tried to forget the pain and bloodshed for the third time around with little success.

He also learns Gerome is still adept with his hands, from the way he sews quick (he finds that he helps a woman further into town with seam work on the side) to the way he handles an axe as he chops wood for a fire to the way he holds onto Inigo’s hips as he kisses him deep and thorough each night. It makes him feel like Gerome is unwilling to let go and he accepts it. 

Gerome is still the same in the way he kisses him just as he is the same in the way he fucks him. He’s gentle to a fault, hands soft despite years of wielding a weighted axe in battle. He treats Inigo like he will break from the moment he presses him back into plush down and kisses him, licks his mouth open to earn a moan that’s equally breathless as it is desperate. 

And Inigo is just the same in how he raises his hips to the touch, cants his hips upwards for more contact that is always graciously given to him. He thinks that there is no fault in the way that Gerome makes love to him. There is no fault with how fucked out he always is with time stretching so long between them as they relearn each others bodies over and over, skin sticky and mind a mess before he’s taken care of and put back together again.

Gerome is the same in the way he comforts him when he cries or when he has a bad dream, just as he’s willing to stay up with Inigo as he reads by dying candlelight before coaxing him into bed with kiss after kiss and a hold that makes him feel safe.

Sometimes he feels he is too different from the Inigo that Gerome once knew when they were young and battled together, traveled together, laughed together, moaned together; but sometimes he feels that all is right, that he changed in a way fitting for how they settled against each other like interlocking puzzle pieces. Just the two of them.

 

.

 

Inigo watches him all the time, possibly too much. He can’t help it when they share a space like this. Or maybe it’s Gerome invading his space that is unfamiliar, that has his eyes drawn to him as he cooks, as he moves across the living area and settles in places that were once his mother and father’s. It pulls an ache in his chest that he manages to quell with happy memories, memories that had long wrapped tendrils around his chest to bloom with flowers that were bright and kept away the dark that had bled deep before. 

He gets caught staring at him from where he’s sitting at the kitchen table with his chin propped into his hand, red running high against his tanned skin where he smiles shy. 

“What?” is the only word that falls from Gerome’s lips, questioning as it is curious. 

“Nothing. I was just thinking about how happy I am, is all.”

It isn’t a lie when it falls from his lips fast. He’s happy to see Gerome comfortable and in his element with warm light on his face, handsome where shadows fall. It leaves Inigo adjusting to the change of pace and place, smile covering his insecurities as he lets Gerome into another place of his life that he intended to keep his own. He thought the same with dancing until he danced for Gerome as a dare one night. He remembers promptly being pulled down to blankets initially meant for stargazing, held there until he was left gasping and skin stained white with sore hips and bruises darkening against his collarbone. 

“I see.” A typical pause. “I am too – happy, that is.”

 

.

 

He can’t help but think his life isn’t so bad like this, so bad when it’s peaceful and he can wake up warm next to the one that he loves. In another life, he probably thought that he would be waking up next to a woman or possibly no one, bed cold due to wars that never seemed to end. He never thought he could be so wrong.

So very wrong when he slowly wakes to a gentle hand running through his hair and another in one of his own hands, blinking away a blanket of sleep as he focuses on the smiling face in front of him.

“Hey.”

It’s rough on the edges with sleep before he clears his throat, glancing down to where their fingers are laced while pieces slowly click into place. Inigo only glances back up when he realizes the new and subtle weight on his finger, along with the possible implications of the silver band settled flush against his mother’s ring that he still wears.

“Gerome…?”

He’s met with a smile, one that’s as knowing as it is telling.

“Will you, Inigo?" 

Inigo meets it with one of his own before he’s leaning forward, kiss teary where he surges close with force too bruising for the morning. He can’t blame his happiness, though, brimming as he clutches bare shoulders.

“Of course. _Gods_ , of course,” he whispers into his mouth. “ _Always_.”

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/kazujerk) about fe!!  
> i listened to [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vykVdJDu28A) so much while writing, so kind of inspired if you wanna listen.


End file.
